Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

Janet Stemwedel has posted an interesting review of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go. The novel was published in 2005 to wide critical acclaim, making runner-up for the prestigious Booker Prize and named one of the top 100 English-language books by Time Magazine. As you might expect from the author of Remains of the Day, the novel focuses on the English upper class. As the original review in Time puts it:

Never Let Me Go is the story of three people--Kathy, Tommy and Ruth--who at first appear to be ordinary children attending an exclusive and indefinably creepy but otherwise ordinary English boarding school. The only other thing you need to know is that the book is a page turner and a heartbreaker, a tour de force of knotted tension and buried anguish.

But, as you've probably already guessed, there is more to it than that - the story's protagonists are actually clones raised for their organs.

Janet notes that Never Let Me Go raises a number of questions in biomedical ethics. Based on a discussion that started in the comments to that post, she follows up with a look at the scientific plausibility of the biomedical technology.

Tags:Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, bioethics, organ donation